


Of Fingers and Lullabies

by reikundesho



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Relationship(s), Romance, Slice of Life, Tragedy, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10515030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reikundesho/pseuds/reikundesho
Summary: Park Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun once soared the heavens along with the gods and seraphs but like Icarus, they are now wingless birds unable to paint the skies, earthbound with their flightless lives for gliding too close to the sun.





	1. The modern-day Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this years ago and published it on Asianfanfics. Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this years ago, originally published at Asianfanfics. Enjoy.

 

 _A widow owned that lowly hut, she had one only joy,_  
_Alas her care and sorrow too, for he was a crippled boy_  
_He could not climb the mountain path, he could not run and play._  
_He could not earn the daily bread, for which his mother toiled all day._  
_“Oh mother,” he would sometimes say, “why has God made me so?_  
_What use am I, what work is mine?” And the tears would flow._  
_“Nay, nay my child. Have patience still, be sure the words are true._  
_God has a plan for every man, and He has one for you.”_  
_\- The Crippled Boy_

 

 

The caliginous morning breeze was the reason why Park Chanyeol stirred from his shallow sleep, eyes fluttering open in one evanescent flick. The sunbeam shines upon celestial, dark brown orbs, attuning vision and eliminating haze that clouded his sight. Sitting up, he slowly becomes aware of the suppressed, morning lull of the birds by his window, the reverent humming of the television on the wall, and the consolable sputtering of the radiator at the corner of the room. His mouth tasted strong of Vicodin, putrid hospital food, and assuaging apple juice while the niches of his sockets are crusted with sleep.

Honestly speaking, Chanyeol feels like shit, his head swimming from the painkillers, his everything aching from the consecutive torpor, which for him only meant one thing: he needed his guitar to summon comfort, to muster repose. So like clockwork, he reaches the floor to his side only to realize his hands are swathed with yards of gauze, indisposed and deficient while his guitar was nowhere to be found.

 

Sand and thorns. It was what awoke Byun Baekhyun from his struggled slumber, his brows severely creased, his face badly contorted with malaise. Abruptly, the distinct pain in his throat that is both indescribably coarse and unbearably dolorous bombards his senses, an impression made worse by the distinct stench of Demerol and antiseptics. To quench the famine in his throat, he sat up, reaching for the tall glass of water on the steel, bedside table his regular nurse, placed on last night before Baekhyun slept.

Taking the now lukewarm liquid crystal, he recalls his doctor’s initial instruction: to drink at least sixty-four ounces a day. _No shit._ Baekhyun thought as he downs his first out of eight. Driven by impulse, he was about to exclaim with an eased “Ahh...” when he promptly remembers his doctor’s _second_ instruction: total voice rest. No talking, no groaning, no whispering, no singing. Nothing. Helpless and impotent, there he sat, engulfed by what he loathed most in the world: hissing silence _._

 

 

Simultaneously, both boys weep, stifled, jaundiced sobs filling the deserted, fluorescent-lit hospital room. They weep not because of their loss but because of having to live with the loss. Of having been left with no other choice but to move on. It hurt to think that they are robbed of the very thing they needed, the very thing they thought essential to escape their respective realities.

They can see it now, their lives after this useless confinement. With both their mediums gone, they will be mocked, pitied, and constantly held up to scrutiny. To them, they were now rejects in a toy factory. A product gone wrong. Their misfortune will forever be revisited by aspiring stars, throwing them unheard pity parties from here and there. They are now like precipitous Icarus, wingless birds unable to paint the skies, earthbound with their flightless lives for gliding too close to the sun.

But what wound them the most was the idea of being ordinary. The horrifying actuality that they can no longer be set apart. The daunting thought of being perpetually cursed to walk the face of the earth, mundane and scarred. Average and splintered. A couple of wretched, woebegone stigmas.

To them, that was all they could ever be.

 

 


	2. Takeoff

 

 

A low blast from beneath the floor of a young man’s room is heard as the rumbling gradually arouses him. At first, there were muted crackling noises, stirring the boy further who is a feet under sheets of blankets from his slumber, wood faintly susurrant in the dark. Next was smoke, an impalpable dark cloud poisoning his lungs, sharp and acrid, transforming into tangible barbs the minute it seeped into his gullet. Then came the definite, bodiless clamor, startling and gut-wrenching which finally jolts Park Chanyeol awake only to find that it was either hell surfaced the earth or his house was on fire. He, of course, picked the latter.

Sitting up, Chanyeol helplessly watched as flames consumed stacks of his CD and vinyl collection, spattering metallic fireworks as it came in contact with the sweltering heat. Powerless, he gawked as embers devoured his sheet music pieces he spent most of his life writing on, hundreds of lined papers taped against the wall now crumbling into ashes. His house lit up before his very eyes in a pace so rapid, his heartbeat could barely keep up. The very sight paralyzed the boy, his mind literally empty, mildly catatonic from the shock that not even fear could penetrate it.

Eventually, he comprehends the situation: if he remains immobile, he burns along with his abode and his craft but, _like hell I’m gonna let that happen!_ So wide-eyed and baffled, Chanyeol scrambles, snatching his now scorched acoustic guitar from beside his desk while leaving everything else to the gluttonous pyre like an offering hopeless of acknowledgment. Covering his nose with a forearm, the towering colossus flies for his life, squinting through fire and ash, his eyes tearing from the searing fissure of death.

Barefoot, he dashes through the blistering wooden floor, determined to make it out of the fiery chasm alive but unsure how as burning rubble blocked his way. “Fuck!” He exclaims, his chance of survival thinning by the minute. Gyrating through the flames, he pirouettes along the flickering choreography until he manages to emerge the hallway. He finally has a clear view of his egress but the relief was cut short as a faint, low grunting immediately stops him in his tracks.

With heightened auditory perception, he cautiously moves to the kitchen where he sees a struggling figure under a burning beam. As he saw who it was underneath all the smoke, soot, and flames, he grew all the more determined to pry the debris enough to spare the man’s life, ignoring the probability of endangering himself.

 

For a young man like Byun Baekhyun, being wheeled in from room to room with nothing but numerous and identical fluorescent lights to see overhead, conversations he was immune to partake in, and faces susceptible to prejudice is complete and utter bullshit. If he were to choose, Baekhyun would have the surgery conducted _now_ because not only was he freezing his ass off but also, every minute he spent immobile in that cot caused him to fall behind their rehearsals which is a luxury he currently cannot afford. And although he was too thick to admit it, maybe it was also because he was afraid—that at the farthest recess of his haughty cognition, he is scared shitless.

When he was finally trundled into the operating room, only then could he feel his knees quiver. Everything he laid his eyes on is either in silver or white, the scrubs the doctors wore, the paraphernalia that lay on a separate table beside him, the lights above—it unnerved the boy. _Is this what the rapture looks like?_ He inwardly scoffs.

“Good evening, Mr. Byun Baekhyun.” Chirps one of the doctors as he pulled on one of his translucent, surgical gloves.

“Ehh, what’s up, doc?” Baekhyun croaks, a poor impression of the iconic Bugs Bunny tagline, earning him a few soft titters from the figures clouded in white robes.

He smiles, making his eyes disappear and gleam at the same time, laugh lines perfectly garnishing his porcelain face upon which Baekhyun had to restrain making a face at even after seeing him time after time. _People like him should get arrested for being too beautiful._ He distracts himself, shutting out anxiety.

“It’s good to see you again.” Holding out a clammy hand, Baekhyun manages a small smile. Luhan takes his hand, the total contrast of Baekhyun’s, firm and rigid. “Likewise.”

“You guys better take care of me,” The boy jests, “My voice and I still have a long way to go.”

“We’re paid to make sure you _wheel_ out of here alive so,” Luhan lets out a slight laugh at his own pun as he fiddles with the apparatus that (luckily) was out of Baekhyun’s sight. “We have no choice.”

“Gee, thanks. That just made me feel a hundred times better.” Baekhyun replies as a matter-of- factly.

Before Luhan could reply, his attention is diverted over to the group that enters the room also in stark white scrubs, masks and gloves. “Excuse me, Baekhyun.” He withdraws. For a while they huddle, talking in half-hushed voices, chuckling every now and then.

Idly, the boy on the cot kills time and amuses himself by recalling the lyrics to his solo in a quiet, head-toned voice.

_Who do you think you are?  
Leaving me alone with my gui—_

“That’s from _Rent,_ isn’t it?” Luhan returns, blocking some of the fluorescent lights that were beginning to seem too bright for Baekhyun, his face now obscured by a surgical mask and hairnet.

“You’re a genius, doc. But then I figured that out since you’re licensed to open peoples’ throats.”

 

* * *

 

Screeching. Grating. Jarring. The room is filled with dissonant, shrill scraping sounds. A burning felt-tip pen against a helpless, glossy-surfaced whiteboard, rigorously squeaking as Baekhyun wrote swiftly without missing a beat. When he was done, he lifted the sixteen-inch board that is now covered with livid strokes and blaring exclamations that can only be deafening within one’s head. _“Twelve days?! I’m supposed to stay here for TWELVE FUCKING DAYS?!”_

The plump-lipped boy who sat by the infuriated teenager’s bed lets out an _I-knew-he-was-gonna-react-like-this_ sigh, suppressing an eye roll at the drama king. “Well, Minseok said it would give you enough time to recuperate and steer clear from the press si—”

Before he could finish however, Baekhyun abruptly erases what he wrote with the sleeve of his blue polka-dotted hospital gown then begins writing with the same amount of ire. _“Fuck what Minseok said, Do Kyungsoo! I can’t stay here another day.”_ He then mouths *‘another day’ comically as he pretends to sing it.

Piercing his usual beady eyes at him, the boy replies. “Drop the act, Byun Baekhyun. We’re not onstage. Besides, it’s only been two. At least you’re left with ten.”

 _“That’s the point! It’s only been two days but I’m already this close to losing it!”_ He gestures his thumb and index together to show just how his patience is near to drying.

With this, Kyungsoo stands, taking the remote from the bedside table crowded with rushed (and not to mention, half-assed) get-well-soon cards from people in the company that Baekhyun did not go through the trouble of reading. “Don’t take it out on me, okay? I was only sent to tell you.” A television perched on the wall facing them switches on. Immediately, cheers and jeers of a thousand sport enthusiasts in a coliseum permeate the compact, hospital room.

_“So you came **just** to tell me?”_

“And maybe to look after your pitiful, defenseless form?” Kyungsoo blindly unpacks the sliced fruit he brought him, eyes glued on the television as he flips the channel to a music show. _2ne1’s_ on, rocking it with their new comeback as they go head-to-head against _SNSD_.

 _“That’s real sweet.”_ Baekhyun had to wave the board around before his friend could notice. Kyungsoo settles back in afterwards, handing Baekhyun the plate of fruits. “It’s the least I can do.”

He spares him a look before focusing back on the show.

_“I honestly don’t even know if I’m allowed to eat shit yet.”_

The boy gapes at the indisposed with his wide orbs then shrugs, taking the plate back and shoving a piece of peach into his mouth. Silence, as the two momentarily focuses on watching _VIXX_. “How long until you can sing again?”

_“There’s no saying when yet. Doctor says it could be a week or so but that’s just an estimation. Anyway, he’s scheduled a check up tomorrow.”_

“Is it pretty-face? With the doe eyes and that lovely laugh? What’s his name again?”

_“Oh, god. Wait ‘til Jongin hears about this.”_

“Wait, about what?” Kyungsoo tore his gaze from the television, gawking at Baekhyun, unable to follow.

 _“You—having the hots for my doctor.”_ With narrow eyes and a teasing grin that spoke all on its own, the boy even drew hearts and sparkles to provoke the other all the more.

Flushed, Kyungsoo hits him at the arm with the back of his palm. “The fuck? I just wanted to know the guy’s name!”

Though Baekhyun barely produced muted sounds to express his laughter and even squinted his eyes out of Kyungsoo’s hilarious reaction, he couldn’t ignore the small, menacing voice at the back of his head that posed the same question he asked himself a day before surgery and every day thereafter, _Will I ever get to sing again?_

That afternoon, as he sat alone by his window, Baekhyun realizes that it had been a while since he last felt the wind on his face and walked over blades of grass under his feet. The hospital room was doing him no good, giving out the impression of a cage, limiting and confining. It began to drive him insane. Staring at the bare walls that encased him, he could feel it move, slowly compressing him to the point of extinction. He had to get out if he knew what was good for him.

 

“You ought to spare this place a little more light, Chanyeol.” His mother gently badgers as she placed rustling plastic bags of rustic, fragrant greens onto the overbed table. Pulling the curtains, sunlight irrepressibly seeps into his dreary hospital room, casting a soft but surprising morning gleam upon the boy’s face, momentarily blinding.

“I didn’t think I could pull curtains back with these stumps.” Holding out his hands sheathed with gauze, Chanyeol replies in a hushed voice, his face stoic and indecipherable.

Pivoting back to the boy who has his eyes fixed on the frosted world beyond the windows, the woman’s expressions tense as anxiety surfaced. It bothered her to hear him refer to his misfortune in that manner. “Please don’t talk like that,” She proceeds into preparing her boy’s breakfast. “I’m tending over my indisposed son _and_ planning my husband’s funeral. The last thing I need is you sarcastically sassing me.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Chanyeol implores though rather robotically as he always have. “I’m sorry.”

Looking away, Sumi begins to prepare the food she brought for her boy, expression slightly down trodden. “It’s fine.”

Chanyeol’s gaze falls to the end of his arm where there used to be palms and fingers extending, obedient to his cognition, faithfully at his beck and call but is now replaced with stubs—useless, horrid stubs that can only move hither and thither. “You have to understand me too, mom. I’m not used to ineptitude, I’m not used to depending on you. Everything’s so fucking different all of a sudden, it’s killing me. Literally.”

She holds out a strict finger at him, “Hey, hey. Language.”

Chanyeol looks out his window again, its corners layered with thick, white snow, the glass frosted from the cold, which unconsciously reminds him of that night in the fire. Flashes of his father’s face that is black as soot—crumpled with pain and regret—beleaguers the boy’s psyche, tormenting and cruel. “Why couldn’t I have saved him?”

The woman stops, her features deadpan. Slowly, she takes her place by her son’s side, fondling his cheeks so that the boy would look at her. “Listen to me, Chanyeol. There was _nothing_ you could’ve done. So please, stop beating yourself up.”

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t. Every night I wake up, suffocated, haunted by pictures of him dying, sending two to three nurses to come flying into my room just to hold me down, one of which sedates me to the point of clouded visions and warped conversations.”

“You have to give it time.”

“Time? I think I ran out of it.” This silences the woman as she looked for words to retort but comes up with nothing. “Speaking of which, where’s my guitar?” Chanyeol then continues.

“At home.”

“I told you to bring it.”

“I’m sorry, Chanyeol. I just can’t stand seeing you trying to carry it, let alone use it.”

There was silence as Chanyeol wearingly rests his case, watching his mother proceed into fussing about, asking him questions like, “Want me to fluff your pillow? Are you cold? Should I buy you something to read? Have you drunk your medicine? When will your doctor meet you again?”

The more she asked, the more he felt his incompetence, drilling and scraping at the pit of his stomach, mocking him of his vulnerability and he hated it. He hated being reliant. He hated remaining dormant. He hated being helpless. He hated losing what was most important to him.

The hospital barely helped. The view of his room, distasteful. The smell of his medications, nauseating. The sound of the dextrose dropping in a lactated ringer's solution, irksome. Wherever he looked, whatever he smelled, whichever he heard, dampened his spirits. He knew he had to get out of here—even for a little while—before depression could consume what was left of him.

When the woman left to buy the boy something hot to eat and sip, Chanyeol sits up and contemplates as he looked out the window, the fresh, whipping winter air beckoning. Without a word and before he could think again, he throws his sheets to the side and clambers to his feet for the first time since he got wheeled into this room. Despite having been engrossed with inertia, he ignores his teetering legs with the consistency of gelatin as he escapes his cage.

 

By the time Baekhyun reached the vast, white garden at the back of the hospital, the horizon had begun to swallow the big, orange ball that dipped at the amber sky. It was a beautiful sight, breathtaking and wondrous but Baekhyun wasn’t the kind to dwell on such things, for appreciation came in quite short for him. With the whiteboard tucked under his arm and a marker (which he brought in case he were to talk to someone) tucked in his pocket along with his hands, he settles onto a wooden, slightly damped bench, ignoring even the beautifully frosted stone fountain before him.

As he sat there, Baekhyun is reminded of his family back in Imjado and of course, of Tao. His mother’s scanty home-cooked meals, his father’s fetid fish boat, his three siblings’ maddening racket, their slightly dilapidated diner, and even Tao’s inward whining. He misses them. Terribly at that. He misses them to point of wishing he had never gone to Seoul. But he was here, fulfilling his dreams and they were there, sticking to the status quo.

So what was he missing?

Before the skyline consumed the last light of the sun; he sees a lanky, towering figure with nothing but the hospital gown on, socks that reached his calves, and white bath slippers that camouflaged with the snow; his face illuminated with a blotch of orange, amplifying his brown orbs, hair like a mop in a shade of brown. For a while, Baekhyun wonders where he has seen him before, the boy’s face clearly familiar to him. Then he asks himself, _why the hell is he out in the cold with just a robe on?_

Eventually, his eyes traveled to the boy’s hands, which were swaddled with gauze, white like the snow that blanketed over blades of grass, inadvertently answering his question for him.

 

Chanyeol listened to the crunching of ice below his feet as he quaked his way out of the hospital, the cold immediately seeping into his thin, blue polka-dotted hospital robe. His subconscious was telling him off, shouting coherent insults at him, _you idiot! You’re gonna catch a fucking cold. If you want to die, you can just throw yourself off a building not freeze yourself to death._

The sun had began to sink, streaking the silver sky with pinches of pink and orange, the clouds resembling cotton candy, the ball of life hovering near the surface of the earth. He scrambles to a bench facing a circular fountain of Neptune standing upon violent, tempestuous waves, his head sideways, brows furrowed in rage, mouth open as though he were yelling, commanding the waters to devour a ship for offering him inadequate sacrifice, his triton held high with his left hand while his right hung suspended in the air, authoritative and imperious. Icicles came out of the statue’s mouth where water used to flow from, the rest of it frosted with intricate, crystal rime, glistening under the pale dusk.

Among the wilted trees, shriveling and grey from the intense cold, Chanyeol sees a petite, mousy brown haired boy seated by the bench facing the fountain, his face obscured by trunks and branches. The closer Chanyeol was, the more he saw of him. The boy wore a thick, fuzzy moss green sweater, small protruding threads visible against the milky, white snow; legs covered in pajamas patterned with a cartoon character that Chanyeol thinks is Johnny Bravo; his feet snuggled in grey socks and clamped in navy Crocs.

He stood there for a while—shivering and shuddering like an idiot, hands to his chest to keep himself warm—wondering why the boy had a whiteboard when all of a sudden, he turns his head to meet Chanyeol’s eyes. Weirdly enough, Chanyeol has seen that face somewhere; he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

 

* * *

  

“A professor commended me for my work today,” In the midst his parents’ small talk and exchange, Chanyeol begins as he picks a large chunk of rice with his chopsticks, concurrently sipping from his bowl of steaming hot Yukgaejang. The room is then quiet as the clinking of utensils and clatter of plates ceased. Looking up, the boy is met with very contrasting expressions: his mother’s soft beam against his father’s rough glower. “Said a kid like me shouldn’t be wasting his time hanging around empty corridors or blending in among the useless mundane.”

Silence as his parents wait for further news. When Chanyeol nonchalantly resumes eating however, his mother presses on, eager to find out more. “And?”

Spiking a piece of meat with his fork, he replies. “He made some calls.”

“That’s great!” Park Sumi deftly takes the napkin from her lap to her lips, “So how did it go? Any takers?”

“Well,” He pauses again as he contemplates on how else to say it while his parents waited. He knew his mother would react one way and his father another which in all actuality, dreaded the boy—he always thought he was awful with conversing. Eventually, he realizes that there was not other way to put it aside from being brazen. “He scheduled me an interview with _M Musical Art’s_ head honcho, Kim Minseo—”

“Oh, please.” Park Jaeyong interrupts, shooting down his boy’s spirits with the first syllable that escaped the crevices of his teeth. “That’s farfetched.”

Deadpan with disbelief, Sumi shoots her draconic husband a look. “What _are_ you talking about?” _Here they go again,_ Chanyeol thought, rolling his eyes inwardly.

“Just don’t get your hopes up, Yeol.”

“How could you say that? And to your own son?” For a while he humors them, watching them as though they were tennis players in a match under the scorching sun, rubber shoes abrading clay, inwardly wishing they’d eventually stop and return to the topic at hand—his future.

“Let’s face it, Sumi. The art industry’s not a stable field in terms of salary and career. One day you’re the hottest trend. Next thing you know, you’re a fly flocking over a pile of shit, struggling to survive and remain by sticking like glue onto the nearest source of vitality. And as a parent, I would very much like not to see you in such a state.”

“Wait, where are you coming from this?”

“Nowhere, I’m just saying—”

“Are you still hung over the fact that _you_ could’ve been CEO to the most powerful company in Seoul?” _Oooh, cheap shot mom,_ Chanyeol thought, downing a tall glass of water.

“That is _not_ what I mea—”

“You know how much I hated involving myself in my father’s business and you know how much painting means to me.”

“Of course, I do. Would I still be here if I didn’t?” Bringing a clenched fist to his mouth as though to choke down a string of profanities, his father lets out a deep breath, simultaneously closing his eyes. “Look, we’ve been through this before—I don’t care if you’ve decided to dedicate the rest of your lifetime on empty canvases or blocks of marbles while I spend mine on long, grueling work hours, cross-eyed and worn out from fixing and fiddling with wires and gears my engineers incompetently produced because I respect you and your choices.”

“You respect me? You respect me by you’re discouraging your son to follow his dreams? You respect me by indirectly telling your son not to be a fool like his mother?” _Fuck, this is getting out of hand._

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not discouraging the boy, Sumi. I’m calmly telling him to not expe—”

“You’re ashamed of me, aren’t you? You’re ashamed that I do my own laundry. You’re ashamed that I wear bandanas on my head to keep my hair from my face. You’re ashamed that I’m nothing like your colleagues’ wives; sparkling and seductive.”

“Enough!”

At this point of the conversation, Chanyeol automatically detaches himself from their argument, drowning out their infernal yapping as he slurped and chomped down the rest of his dinner. When he was done, he left the table without a word _and_ without looking back, his retreating presence ignored as it had always been. Reaching the top of the stairs—clearly out of his parents’ sight—Chanyeol stops, his heel nudging him to turn back. But instead, he remains glued to the floor, ears pricked, listening and hoping because despite it all, a part of the boy wanted to be noticed, wanted their squabbling to cease, wanted his parents to apologize for being a couple of self-absorbed idiots but then he knows that even if they did—he’d still walk away.

In his room, he pulls out his guitar from its black, leather hard case and snatches his folder of sheet music from the desk. Flipping through papers squiggled with quarter notes, rests, and G-clefs, he finds a piece then plays to block out the noise, a routine he has grown bitterly used to. As a child, he used to do just the same: lock himself in his room and ram his palms against his ears just so he could stop listening to his parents’ unending quarrels. But no matter how thick his walls were or how tightly he fastened his hands onto his ears, the shouting, the thrashing, the cussing all seeped into the crevices haunting the boy even to his sleep, driving him to the point of insanity. Then came his guitar. His deliverance. His redemption.

 

“A-are you sure about this, hyung?” Huang Zitao hesitantly asks as he watched his boyfriend dart across his room, snatching clothes, toiletries, and the like before dumping mounds of them into two of his shabby luggage. “I mean, the big city _is_ pretty terrifying, y’know.” In his attempt to convince Baekhyun not to leave Imjado, Tao’s brows met in the middle, running out of offense, beginning to sound asinine and senseless. It wasn’t that he was being selfish. Admittedly, he was just afraid, afraid that he might lose Baekhyun to ambitions and dreams just as his father lost his mother. Being left behind was the one thing Tao can no longer handle but then, how was he to tell Baekhyun of this without sounding egocentric?

“Ngaww, you big baby. Hyung doesn’t mind.” Baekhyun says, grabbing two pair of boxers patterned with _Adventure Time’s_ Finn and Jake, similar in design but different in color (one being navy while the other’s white). “You know how I’ve always wanted to get out of here and sing. Right now, all I have to do is pack my bags, bid my farewells, skip to the dock, and wait for the boat that takes me to Seoul.” Baekhyun folds them after briskly smelling if they were clean.

“Yeah.” Was all Tao says, his head buzzing with question and fear, tongue itching to say more than he could.

With a smile, Baekhyun places his hands over his hips; satisfyingly beaming at his neatly folded and tucked meager goods and chattels before finally closing it. When he looks over to Tao however, the corners of his mouth sink to the sides as he sees the anxiety pulsating in the other boy’s eyes and only then does Baekhyun realize the depth of him leaving for Seoul. Not only was he leaving his family in such short notice behind, but also the relationships it took him years to build, which included his and Tao’s.

Slowly, he sits at the foot of the bed, contrite and rueful while their knees touched. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

Tao doesn’t even look up as he busies himself, uneasily fidgeting the hem of his shirt. “Out of my wits.”

The smaller male takes his boyfriend’s hand, fingers intertwining, revealing his cold, clammy palms that slightly shook. “Believe it or not, I am too.”

He may not see the fear through Baekhyun’s eyes, but the sudden drop of temperature in his hands told Tao otherwise. “You don’t have to go.” He subtly whines as he faced Baekhyun, eyes swimming with conviction.

“You know I can’t do that, Tao.”

“Why? Why not?”

The smaller of the two stands, walking over his desk where he procures a photo of him and another boy both around the age of eight, arms swung over the other. Baekhyun’s expression was glum and apathetic, eyes torn from the camera while the boy had this huge smile, splitting his face into two, eyes disappearing into crescent moons as they held out their medals with their free hands. Staring at the photo, a corner of his lips curl, memories of that day rushing back to him like waves to the shore. “I just have so much to do,” His voice trails off as he thumbed at the glass. “So much promises to fulfill.”

 _You promised me things too._ Tao inwardly thought, biting his tongue down, clenching his jaws until they hurt. He couldn’t risk blurting out shit and end up ruining his boyfriend’s excitement. Though it hurt him to see Baekhyun give up his quiet life in Imjado for the hubbub of the city over a promise and an ambition that might not get him anywhere, who was he to hold him back?

“He taught me how to play the guitar. Have I told you that?” Shooting Tao a glance, Baekhyun gleams at him.

 _Yes,_ “No.” _A couple of times._ The bronze-skinned boy manages a smile despite the prominent pain in his chest, gnawing and deranging.

“He’s waiting for me. I know it.”

 _What about me? What happens to me now? To us—the people you’ll be leaving behind?_ “Then do what you have to do.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

Tao scoffs, “It’s not like I have much of a choice.”

Baekhyun nestles his arse on his bed again, settles the picture frame aside, and takes Tao’s hand, facing the younger boy to him. “I know this is all coming to you as a shock. I’m pretty shaken up too. And so is my family—even the rest of the town, for God’s sake! I mean, after years of making fun of me because I _‘dreamt big’_ , here I am practically living it. Besides, I can’t be stuck here forever. I have the rest of the world to see and six billion other people to meet.”

“I know.” _There’s just no getting through him, huh?_

“Imjado will be fine without me. My family would have better chances of survival with one less mouth to feed. But will _you_ be—”

Before Tao could answer and before Baekhyun could continue prattling, the younger between them pulls the older by the collar, pressing their lips together because this may be the last time he could take him by surprise and the last time he gets to taste them. Pulling away, Tao took Baekhyun’s face, brushing a fond thumb against his skin that resembled milk and snow. “I lived most of my life without you. I think I can manage the rest.” Tao lets out a subdued, forced chuckle. “I love you, hyung. I’d stop you from going, tell you it isn’t worth it to leave all this behind but that would be a lie. Because really, you’re turning your back on nothing.”

 

* * *

 

With a script in hand and eyes locked with the musical director’s, Kim Junmyeon begins,

 _Gentlemen_ _, our benefactor on this Christmas Day_  
_Whose charity is only matched by talent, I must say_  
_A new member of the Alphabet City Avant-garde_  
_Angel Dumott Schuna—_

“No, no, no, no, no. No. No!!” Oh Sehun cuts the orchestra by holding out a hand as a cue for the conductor, running a vexed palm against his frustrated face and instantaneously letting out a loud, cross sigh. As the musical director of this season’s _Rent,_ it was his job to make sure the cast’s voice is prepped and conditioned. It is day ten of their rehearsals ever since the cast was finalized but even then, things haven’t been running quite smooth—so to speak—since Junmyeon kept missing his notes that eventually affected the rest of the song’s melody. His seventh slip-up for the afternoon earns him a couple of tired exclamations and murmuring complaints, the loudest among belonged to a certain Byun Baekhyun who simultaneously rolled his eyes at the obvious misfit.

“Hyung, you may be older than me but seeing as I’ve been in this field longer than you’ve been, you’ll be right to trust me when I say: the president will slaughter you if you don’t get the fucking notes right!” Growling, Sehun crosses his arms as he scowled at Junmyeon who in turn pressed his lips together that diminished into a thin, frustrated line, his brows creased with vexation.

“Who’s gonna slaughter who?” A disembodied voice interrupts, causing almost over fifty heads that stood onstage swiveling towards its source. Speckled gasps here and there are heard, taking in the fact that it was Kim Minseok himself—the director of _Rent_ and the president of _M Musical Art_ —gracing them with his presence. Baekhyun had only seen the guy twice; first, back in Imjado when he stumbled upon his family’s humble seafood diner where he first heard the boy sing; and second, during the first day of rehearsals.

“Uh, no one, sir.” Sehun stutters, clambering to his feet as he rushed to leave the stage and to join the director.

“Good, because I’m not really interested in slaughtering anyone tonight. I have to meet my new composer at six and I have dinner with my family by eight. I can’t go there all bloodied up by your incompetence, now can I?” After taking his coat and setting his leather satchel down, he takes his seat right in the middle where he could see the perfect scale of the stage. “So, are you all prepared for the initial preview?”

Minseok gains a loud, booming, “Yes!” as a reply that echoes throughout the theatre.

“Before anything else; main cast, front and center please.” The president requests and immediately as seven individuals scrabble toward the middle; there was Byun Baekyun as _Roger Davis_ , Kim Taeyeon as _Mimi Marquez_ , Do Kyungsoo as _Mark Cohen_ , Kwon Boa as _Maureen Johnson_ , Wu Yifan as _Benjamin Coffin III_ , Kim Junmyeon as _Tom Collins_ , Kim Jongdae as _Angel Dumott Schunard_ , and Amber Liu as _Joanne Jefferson_.

“Reminders,” With his chin above the back of his laced fingers, Minseok scrutinizes them, his eyes moving from one cast to another. They stayed like this for a couple of minutes, obtaining slightly baffled side eyes. When he was done, he nonchalantly says, “First, before you step onstage, leave behind all thoughts—and I mean _all_ thoughts—that will affect your performance. Next, if you don’t feel the heat of the spotlight—or any of the lights, in that matter—on your face, your blocking is wrong. And lastly, if you haven’t internalized your character, understood their goal, and unlocked the message they want to convey, it’s high time you reevaluate your fucking lives.”

“Now, let’s begin. From the first few scenes: _Seasons of Love_ , _Rent, You’ll See, and_ _One Song Glory._ ” Crossing his legs, he watches the seven dissipate into the sides to get their respective lapels installed, stalking that one boy he had been expecting so much from. “I hope you’re ready, Mr. Byun,” Minseok exclaims. “I’ve been looking forward for this all week. Don’t fuck up.”

“I’ll try not to.” Baekhyun brazenly replies as though he wasn’t at all talking to _the_ president. Minseok, on the other hand, playfully scoffs at the boy’s audacity, amused with his gall while Sehun sputters throngs of apologies on behalf of the cocky teenager.

 

Elbows on his knees and fingers on metal strings, Chanyeol plays his guitar, glancing every once in a while at the sheet music before him, an ear covered with a massive headset while singing along, reciting the lyrics by heart in perfect melody. Gradually, his face splits into two as the notes and words he spent sleepless nights drafting isochronally worked together like clockwork, the taste of victory distinct in his tongue. His lips unconsciously purse, fingers deftly moving from one chord to another. For a while, Chanyeol even closes his eyes, letting the music overcome his cognition, his senses, and his very being.

Outside, Zhang Yixing—an overseer and a senior—watches the boy with a slight smile on his rather lethargic expression, tapping feet against drooping eyelids, swaying torso against slouched shoulders, amazed by the boy’s prodigious expertise when it comes to both composing and playing the guitar. Appointed as Chanyeol’s mentor, Yixing acknowledges the fact that the boy may be better than he ever was when he first entered the company. The fresh meat has shown such great promise and potential, Yixing knew he was groundbreaking.

A lone, note without subsequence then resonates through the soundproof walls of the live booth signaling the success of his first official piece as a resident composer of _M Musical Art._ As an acknowledgement, Yixing cheers for the newbie with a pleasant smile and hands that crashed against the other.

With a grin, Chanyeol removes the headphones and looks over to Yixing who in turn holds out two proud thumbs at him. Taking his guitar and folder of sheet music, Chanyeol comes out of the live booth and moves into the control room, the expression on his face as it usually is, composed and utterly placid. “How was it?”

“Not too bad. I felt a huge vibe of indie rock and baroque rock—it blew my mind.” Yixing begins, a weak, dazed smile on his face, contradicting his statement as he pats the younger male on the back. “It’s a great way to start your album.”

With a small, sheepish grin, the boy pulls away. “Thanks, hyung.”

Turning his back, Yixing picks up his coat and backpack from the couch. “Minseok is sure to love it.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” He turns to face Chanyeol again, eyes sagging on its sides. When he sees the slight anxiety on his subordinate’s expression, he smiles, heart swelling as he saw himself years ago, dying for even the simplest of assurance or even a pat on the back which he was never graced with. “He may seem tough on the outside, but fresh music and new talent had always been the guy’s Achilles’ heel. In fact you should check with him now. If I’m not mistaken, he’s watching _Rent’s_ initial preview at the theatre.”

“What?” Chanyeol is deadpan at the fact that he’ll have to see Minseok earlier than he was planning to, obviously tense. “No. I really shouldn’t.” He places his guitar by the couch as he fished his bag for his phone.

“And why not?”

“Well, because I might interrupt the rehearsals?”

“Of course not, he’s scheduled a meeting with you by six. It wouldn’t hurt to get a head start. Minseok likes _eager_ new talents.” Taking the colossus by the nape, Yixing stands on his toes as he led them toward the door, switching the lights off. “Besides, you get to see _M Musical Art’s_ actors perform. Oh, and if it makes you feel any better, I’ll come with.”

A crack on his face appears, his lips that are usually in a thin line, splitting in two—a sight Yixing has rarely seen. “That would be very helpful—thanks. Again.”

As they left the room, Chanyeol’s phone lights up, buzzing with vibration. Holding it up, he misses the call—it was his father. He checks his log and sees that he left fifty calls and ten text messages, all of which read, “What are you doing? Where are you? You’re supposed to be here for your training.” But unlike every other teenager, this doesn’t bother the boy, “Will you give me a minute, hyung?”

“Sure.”

Untangling himself from Yixing’s arm, he makes his way back into the recording studio. Turning the light back on, he briskly punches in his reply, briefly regretting from taking his phone in the first place. Afterwards, he leaves it settled on top of his bag, in the dark.

In a glass office where everything sparkled and gleamed, Park Jaeyoung receives a message from his son saying, “Making a name for myself in the middle of nowhere.”

 

So far, the preview has been going rather fluidly. The opening number, which is _Seasons of Love_ was well executed; _Rent_ needed a bit more smoothening on its edges, especially at the part where they had to burn papers in huge metal trash cans; _You’ll See_ was perfect with Yifan’s tenor hitting his character’s notes _and_ attitude superbly. As for _One Song Glory,_ well—Minseok is close to seeing it.

Onstage, Baekhyun as _Roger_ sits on a dismal, yellow couch on stage right as he throws his line, “Where are you going?” He looks up from his guitar while Kyungsoo as _Mark_ deftly wore his ragged, dull gold jacket over a red sweater.

“Maureen calls.” He replies, avoiding Baekhyun’s gaze.

“You’re such a sucker!” With face twisted with frustration, his head follows Kyungsoo who gyrates throughout their loft, taking his camera and his navy and white striped scarf.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to see her show in the lot tonight?” Baekhyun shrugs at this. “Or come to dinner?”

“Yeah. Zoom in on my empty wallet.” He replies, his sass subtle but distinct, apathy and sarcasm gurgling in his throat.

“Touché…” Kyungsoo’s voice trails off, slightly hurt with his friend’s newfound indifference. “Take your AZT.” Spotlight is then focuses on Kyungsoo as he holds out his camera and discreetly shoots Baekhyun from behind who is still tuning his guitar. Quietly, he speaks—but really literally sings—into the camera’s microphone.

 _Close on Roger_  
His girlfriend April  
Left a note saying, “We’ve got AIDS”  
Before slitting her wrists in the bathroom

Kyungsoo walks toward the door, but before he leaves he looks back at Baekhyun. “Check up on you later?”

Baekhyun nonchalantly holds out a hand, gesturing him to go.

“Change your mind. You have to get out of the house.” Finally, Kyungsoo exits as the spotlight now centers on Baekhyun.

 

Swinging one of the heavy double doors open, Yixing and Chanyeol stealthily let themselves into the theatre, careful not to draw attention. Walking towards the two men seated in the middle, Chanyeol’s eyes glued on the stage while Yixing went ahead. It was dark, lights focused on the stage before them where a petite boy sat on a yellow couch. For a while he aimlessly plays, the expression on his face as pointless as his music making.

_I’m writing one great song  
Before I—_

He tries. But seeing as it doesn’t work and the triads sound seemingly off-key for him, he rolls his eyes, eventually putting the guitar away with an exasperated sigh. Sitting up, his movement cues the music, immediately filling the theatre with a plucking electric guitar, shifting from chord to chord that Chanyeol can easily tell apart—distinguishing one after the other without any trouble.

 _One song glory, one song before I go_  
Glory, one song to leave behind  
Find one song, one last refrain  
Glory, from the pretty boy front man

 _Who wasted opportunity_  
One song, he had the world at his feet  
Glory, in the eyes of a young girl  
A young girl, find glory

 _Beyond the cheap colored lights_  
One song, before the sun sets  
Glory, on another empty life

 _Time flies, time dies_  
Glory, one blaze of glory  
One blaze of glory, glory

 _Find glory in a song that rings truth_  
Truth like a blazing fire, an eternal flame  
Find, one song, a song about love  
Glory, from the soul of a young man

 _A young man, find the one song_  
Before the virus takes hold  
Glory, like a sunset  
One song to redeem this empty life

 _Time flies and then_  
No need to endure anymore  
Time dies

Blackout.

Caught in a stupor, Chanyeol realizes that his plodding had come to a stop the moment he heard the boy’s voice, seamless, similar to velvet—near perfection itself. It was beyond description as it filled his very senses with nothing but beauty and pulchritude, growing lovely, fragrant flowers in the depths of his rotten, shrouded core that has turned stone cold through time. Instantaneously, the boy transforms into a plethora of nonpareil and paragon, lighting Chanyeol’s spirit ablaze as he stood there deadpan while two of the people who seated in the middle stood, putting their hands together, mouths detonating with whoops and cheers.

The house lights flood the theatre, pulling the boy out of his reverie as he resumes walking toward Yixing who was now shaking hands with the president, his eyes still glued on the boy who—unexpectedly—glances his way and at that moment, it was as if his heart forgot to pump blood; his brain forgot to process information; his system shut down. They stood there, breathless, thoughtless—empty. But what riddled Park Chanyeol was despite being robbed of his ability to breathe and capability to think, he was instantaneously enlightened. He felt like a fountain that had long been forgotten—vines crawling on its once glorious edges, surfaces garnished with cracks and fractures and clefts—but was once again, gracefully sputtering out water, brought back to life and reminded of its purpose.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Rent is a musical. I guess you guys can Google about it so I won't have to elaborate myself? As for the song that Baekhyun sings, its title is One Song Glory, Roger Davis' solo that tells of his past and his current struggle through life. 
> 
> (*) - Another Day is a song in Rent
> 
> And just to avoid confusion, the sentences/words that are italized and italized alone are thoughts. However, the words that are italized AND seperated in another paragraph/stanza may be lyrics for songs. As for the time when Baekhyun is unable to talk, they are italized and are enclosed in quotation marks. I hope this helps! 


	3. Engine failure

 

 

“This is going too far, Chanyeol. You’re forgetting your duty as my son and as a member of _this_ family.”

Chanyeol was just on his way out, his guitar’s hard case slung on his shoulder and his inch thick folder of sheet music in his hand. He is in his best suit, clad in black as today was his album’s press release. Earlier this afternoon, Chanyeol couldn’t help his subconscious to somersault but now, it was as if his stomach had turned inside out, churning with frustration and resentment for his father—garbed in his usual three-piece, navy suit—blocks his way out, a brow raised at the boy. “What are you talking about?”

“We agreed that you would train with your grandfather and I. You know he’s expecting so much from you.”

“That was before _M Musical Art_ —when I thought the world had nothing in store for me. When I thought I wasn’t meant for something great. Now, excuse me. I have a press release to attend to.” Chanyeol pushes past the man, frigid shoulders hitting against the other.

He takes his boy’s arm, a finger protruding from his fisted free hand. “You are never to leave this house again without _my_ consent, do you understand?”

“How can you do this?!”

“You are my son and I can do whichever I like. It is my decision that goes.”

“Be careful dad, Hitler died with the exact same perception. And so did Stalin.”

“Don’t outsmart me, _boy._ ” The man snarls.

“What is going on here?” Sumi storms in from her art studio, all aprons and sweat, paint and strands. By her count, this would be the thirtieth time the two have wrangled ever since Chanyeol had secretly signed a contract with _M Musical Art’s_ Kim Minseok. On one hand, she understands that her husband is only worried for their only son’s future. On the other, she knows exactly what her son is going through. It was a dilemma she wishes she was never burdened with, an impasse so difficult to overcome. For how can she make the two ends meet? And which side does she take? What role does she prioritize—that of being a mother or that of being a wife?

“I’ve been completely tolerant of this boy, Sumi. But he has gone far enough.”

Hands on her waist, Sumi shoots her son a look. “What has he done wrong now?”

“Oh, please! Don’t pretend like you don’t know! He’s been out and about doing God-knows-what when he should be fulfilling his duty for this family!”

“I’m fulfilling my dreams, dad, not getting high underground and smoking dope with a couple of other junkies.”

“Dreams? You call composing music and playing your guitar ‘ _dreams’_?”

“Yeah! The same way you call cooping yourself up in a cubicle of computers and papers and kissing ass _‘dreams’_.”

“You ungrateful—” There was a blur in movements as the man’s fist crashed against the boy’s cheek, an obscured struggle rippling from the said motion, followed by incessant screaming through gritted teeth and flowing tears through pained eyes.

The photos that hung on the walls watched them through perfectly captured moments of the past, glass frames separating their faultless world from the chaotic reality. Despite the mayhem and the discord, the photos remained smiling, remained laughing, clueless of the pain, the adversary, they were to face. As for Chanyeol, he will look back on this day and see the photos smiling back at their pitiful tableau, derisively heckling as he faintly hears bodiless laughter that seems to come from everywhere, irrepressible and effervescent.

 

 _I should tell you, I should tell you_  
I have always loved you  
You can see it in my eyes  
Mimi—

“What the fuck was that?” Sehun shouts, cutting the orchestra with a strict, raging finger, eyes bulging from their sockets, nerves at his neck jutting out. It is day fifty-one into the usual eight-week period for rehearsals before the opening gala and the cast has been polishing one of Act II’s final numbers, _Your Eyes._ Consistently, sessions have been going rather well—that is, except for today.

Clearing his throat, Baekhyun wonders why he missed that one note he used to love hitting, that one note that gave him so much fulfillment, that one note that told him that with his ability, he is set apart. Disbelief swells the heart of most of the cast who stared at him with perplexity and bafflement. Taeyeon’s eyes flutter open, propping herself up from the metal table, the blanket that was deftly placed on top of her earlier, falls to the side.

“People, we are days away from the opening night! We can’t aff—” Sehun was supposed to tell the boy off, a speech already in his head but after seeing the boy in a torpor, all of which what he planned to say dissipated at the sight, helplessly groaning at him.

With a hand on his throat, Baekhyun swallows, an attempt to loosen his vocal chords and to calm his drumming heart. His mouth hung open, forming a crooked O, forehead scrunched with devastation that rippled inside him. What was going on? How could he not reach that note? Where has he gone wrong—has he drawn a shallow breath? Has he not lubricated his chords properly? Why does this have to happen now? Now of all times? Now that only days separate them from the gala?

“Baek?” Kyungsoo asks, placing a gentle hand over his friend’s shoulder.

This awakens the boy from his daze, blinking twice before he bites his bottom lip, looking over his shoulder to see Kyungsoo. “Did you hear that?” He asked.

As a response, his friend nods grimly.

Sehun approaches, arms crossed, brows creased, and expression troubled. “Has this ever happened before?”

“Yes—but rarely.”

“Maybe you should rest your voice or get yourself checked,” Yifan suggests, his brows curled in a worry. He and Baekhyun had grown to be good friends the moment they’ve met. Wu Yifan has a very serious, well-guarded disposition causing him to be misunderstood, as people are usually intimidated (including Kyungsoo, who would always side eye the titan whenever they would pass by the other). “If you keep this up, it isn’t going to do you any good.”

“No. I can’t do that—I mean, the opening night’s a few days from now. I can’t just bail!” The boy flails, bringing two of his fists onto his temples. “We don’t know for sure. It’s probably just sore throat or colds. And whether or not I have any of those, doesn’t mean I’ll stop doing what I’m best at.”

“We get that, Baekhyun. But we can’t continue rehearsing with a _Roger_ who can’t belt!” Amber complains, standing from her seat beside Boa. “It’s like an orchestra rehearsing with a single off-tuned violin. Y’know—ugh, fuck. I’m sorry I suck at metaphors.”

“We have the understudy anyway, I’m sure Henry Lau would love to fill in your shoes while you’re indisposed.” Boa joins in, crossing her legs as she shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry kid, but that’s just the way it is.”

“All right, all right, shut it. I will decide what happens.” There was silence for a while, Sehun deep in thought. “*What’s the time?”

_Well, it’s gotta be close to midnight!_

Jongdae sings trudging towards his co-stars from the backstage. “What did I miss?” He asks, insouciantly eating a sandwich, completely ignorant of the fuss being made.

“It’s quarter to eleven.” Junmyeon answers, rolling his eyes at the blundering idiot he has been paired with.

“Okay, the two of you,” The man suddenly points at the boys, “Rehearse your shit off. Kyungsoo, you’re in charge. If he messes up again, take him to the hospital and get his ass checked. We can’t have him ruining the show because of his obstinacy.” Baekhyun scoffs, rolling his eyes at the musical director, his ego down the drain. “The rest of you, get a good night’s sleep. Call time tomorrow’s the usual: vocal drills with me in the morning, blocking and choreography with Jongin in the afternoon, and run-throughs with the both of us in the evening until everyone drops dead.”

 

“I apologize for not being able to make it in time,” Chanyeol implores with Minseok who in turn, pursed his lips, looking at the boy with a cheek that is beaten black and blue. “My father, he—he doesn’t approve.”

“It’s not like it matters now, Mr. Park.” The president nonchalantly replies, gyrating through a crowd, making his way toward the balcony.

_After his father hit him, his mother freaked out—as a matter of fact, ‘went berserk’ would be more adequate—and things got pretty messy. First, she wanted to send Jaeyoung away. Then, she decides to let Chanyeol leave since he’s not safe around his father anymore._

_Ultimately, everything dies down when the man beseeches the woman, telling her he’s sorry, **terribly** sorry for laying a hand on their boy when he promised her that he never will. She concedes, forgiving the man—on one condition: “We leave the boy here and move to the country for a few days. It’s the only way we can settle this once and for all: time. Time for either of you to reflect and to think.” She sternly says, tears dripping from her eyes._

_Left with no choice, Jaeyoung agrees. He then turns to his son, eyes unable to meet the boy’s as he begins to apologize. “I’m sorry, Chanyeol. I went too far.” He could tell his father wanted to say more but left it at that, clearly at a loss for words._

_As the man exited the room, Sumi takes her boy into her arms, softly crying on his chest. “I’m okay, mom. Really. I’ve felt worse.” Chanyeol poorly assures her, his baritone quivering._

_She continues to sob, whimpering as she takes his cheek, her thumb lightly rubbing the swollen purple surface. “You make sure you fulfill **all** your dreams, do you hear? Or this fight would’ve been all for naught.”_

“You do want this, don’t you, Park Chanyeol?” Minseok asks, gracefully picking up a glass from a random maître d'. Because of the said palaver, he nearly missed his first album’s press release, arriving halfway through the banquet. Fortunately, Minseok was gracious enough to still introduce him before the guests, labeling the boy as fashionably late. “And by fashionable, I mean, just look at this perfectly blackened cheek.” He said, the guests laughing along with him through wine-stained teeth.

“Absolutely!” The boy replies, pounding a hand against the Victorian-inspired veranda.

“That’s what I thought,” The president replies rather monotonously, sipping from his sparkling champagne. “And if that’s the case, his opinions no longer matter.” He takes the boy by the crook of his neck, indirectly forcing the colossus to slouch. “Look, Chanyeol. I don’t care if you missed the event of your life—anyway, I signed and dealt with possible sponsors on your behalf after we released your single—but when it comes to hurdles that hinder you from fulfilling your dream— _our_ dream? That’s when I step in.”

“What you mean to say is..?” Chanyeol asks with hesitance, unsure of what the president is trying to imply.

“That a normal, impassive employer wouldn’t give single a fuck about your petty family feud. Luckily for you, I think otherwise.”

 

“Shit!” Baekhyun irately exclaims, his voice echoing the empty dance room that is well known for its brilliant acoustics. “Why is this happening?! And why _now_?!” Driven by pure frustration and maybe a pinch of crossness from the lack of sleep and abundance in brain activity, the boy pounds the wall.

“Stop! That’s company property! If it breaks I bet you a million won that you can’t pay for it, genius!” Kyungsoo shakes his head at him while the latter scowls.

“You don’t have a million wo—wait, wait, aren’t you supposed to be worried about me rather than _this_ piece of concrete?! Because believe it or not, it’s indestructible against my fleshy, pitiful fist!”

“Well, at least your cognition’s still intact. I was just checking if you knew that punching that wall was useless since you were far from breaking it. And for the nth time, please keep it down!” He pragmatically replies, running a thumb and an index finger against the bridge of his nose. “Look, if you want to strain your voice all the more, be my guest.” It is past twelve but the duo remained, ironing tunes and memorizing lines.

 _Long ago -- you might've lit up my heart_  
_But the fire's dead -- ain't never ever gonna start—_

Baekhyun chokes again cussing simultaneously as his consonants darted through the empty studio like venom. “That’s it,” The beady-eyed boy snatches his shoes from the benches then puts them on. “I’m taking you to the hospital.” Kyungsoo pulls on Baekhyun’s sleeve to get him to stand but he persists.

“What? No! I can do this. You _have_ to trust me.”

Wide-eyed and already on his feet, Kyungsoo stares at the other boy deadpan. “Uhh, earth to Baek? You just screwed most of the songs we sang. You’re seriously asking me to _trust_ you?”

“Yes, the way you asked me to trust you ten years ago.”

Upon hearing this, Kyungsoo begins to laugh. “And you’re bringing that up now, because?”

Realizing that he had said something stupid and sappy, Baekhyun feels blood rushing up his face, his ears heating up. “Will you shut up? You’re making fun of me!”

“D’awww, what? No, I’m not!” Sitting back down, Kyungsoo slings an arm around the other boy’s shoulder, pulling him closer in a rather exaggerated movement. “You have to admit though, it’s pretty great you held onto my promise. I mean, look where it got you.”

“Exactly! And now what—I’m just gonna let a stupid sore throat ruin it all for me? I can take fucking honey lemon lozenges for all I care—the show just has to go on _with_ me.”

“Do you mind? I’m reminiscing here!”

Grumbling, Baekhyun pouts, side-eyeing the other who now leans on his arms, palms flat on the varnished, wooden floor. For a while, the room drowns in their silence as Baekhyun lays on his stomach, bringing his chin onto his palms, his elbows etching on the wood beneath him. “Remember when we used to sit by the pier, waiting for your dad’s boat?”

He scoffs as a reply. “How could I forget?”

“We would just sit there with nothing but my guitar, a slice of bread each and a slab of cheese; cheerfully singing songs, blissfully savoring the whipping wind, delightfully suffocating in the ocean’s saline scent; life used to be so simple,” Kyungsoo sighs as though he was shouldering a burden so heavy and was finally letting it go.

For Baekhyun, it was as if he was transported back to Imjado. He could feel the rushing water meeting his toes that swung from the pier, he could hear the seagulls’ cries overhead, he could see his father’s boat approaching from afar. As much as he has tried so hard to tuck the sensation of wistfulness, it somehow unearths itself whenever a memory of his hometown automatically plays in his head. But today, instead of burying it back into the depths of his psyche, he concedes to his friend’s wish.

“I remember burying you under the hot, coarse sand while you slept by the shore because you hated it and I wanted to show you that sand isn’t all that bad.”

“An asshole then, an asshole now. You didn’t change much, Baek. And you still have that same, annoying scowl on your face.”

“I could say the same thing to you. Still the same, stuck up, confused boy I met, walking around in his shiny black leather shoes, polo shirt buttoned up his neck, hair licked clean from his face—”

“Screw you, Baek. I hate it when you make me sound like a fucking Nancy Boy.” Kyungsoo wittily cuts him off, his hands in a fist, pounding Baekhyun on the arm.

“It’s a miracle we managed to stay friends.” He replies, pushing the boy away and instantaneously rubbing the spot where Kyungsoo had assaulted him.

“Hard to believe, huh?” Showing off his perfectly heart-shaped lips as the two laugh in sync. “Now, what do you say we go get that checkup for you?”

“Wait—what?” Baekhyun spins his head in disbelief, like a top crazily whirling.

“Well, if we still are friends, then do me a solid. Get the checkup.”

Baekhyun groans, raking his hair with his long, delicate fingers. “Still not giving up?”

“Nope. Not until you agree.”

“Fine. If it’ll get you to shut up, I yield.”

“Thank You!” Kyungsoo comically says, on his knees, chin facing the ceiling, hands clasped together as though he were praying while Baekhyun mimics the operatic _Hallelujah_ chorus, his voice breaking at the end. “Okay, c’mon. If we’re lucky, we might catch a cab. The streets can be pretty empty by this time of night.”

“Wouldn’t want to walk all the way to the hospital.” Gathering their stuff together, Baekhyun then puts on his shoes.

“Race you to the lobby!” Kyungsoo abruptly exclaims, bolting out of the room, “Whoever loses pays for the ride!” He then screams, his voice echoing through the empty corridors. “Oh, and take the stairs!”

“Son of a—” Was all Baekhyun could manage as he hopped on one foot while he wore his shoe on the other. “Do Kyungsoo, you cheater!” Running, he could hear his friend’s laugh, chirping and trilling, his footsteps loud against the stale flooring.

Descending the stairs, Baekhyun suddenly hears a faint strumming of an electric guitar, drowning out Kyungsoo’s voice, taunting and goading, slowly being replaced by a soft, baritone singing voice, comforting and tender like hot, melted caramel slipping onto a cold vanilla sundae.

 _Light reflects from your shadow_  
It is more than I thought could exist  
You move through the room  
Like breathing was easy  
If someone believed me

“Beautiful.” Baekhyun thinks out loud as he blindly makes his way, desperate to find the voice, longing to hear more. He continued to follow it, led by nothing but the mellifluous lull of the mysterious voice in the dark, completely forgetting about Kyungsoo and their bet. But then, why was he doing this in the first place? Why is he so agog? How could he ignore Kyungsoo’s helpless, questioning cries from beneath? What was he expecting anyway? Finding a wounded but crazily attractive boy locked alone in a studio? And if he does? What then? Does he invade the boy’s privacy, let himself in so he can awkwardly introduce himself and probably tell him how he was so drawn to his voice and his music?

 _They would be_  
As in love with you as I am  
They would be  
As in love with you as I am  
They would be  
In love, love, love

Even as his conscience slowly made sense, his questions rational while Kyungsoo’s calls amplified, he continues, his dash now subsiding to a trudge. He was close—he could feel it—the voice increasing in volume, wrestling against Kyungsoo’s. Turning a bend, he finally sees an open door amongst a sea of unlit studios, light slithering from its narrow crevices. Hesitantly, Baekhyun tiptoed toward the room. Using a finger to slightly open the door further and peering in with one eye, he sees him through the glass past the control room, the mysterious baritone voice.

 _And with words unspoken_  
A silent devotion  
I know you know what I mean  
And the end is unknown  
But I think I’m ready  
As long as you’re with me

Clever fingers playfully rush past coils of thin wire as the strings created such a heavenly melody, feet precisely stomping against a lone bass drum ( _“Or is it a kick drum?”_ Baekhyun queried) in time with every beat, lips in a soft smile, eyes hazy in a trance as though he’s singing before the person he dedicates the song to.

Without any exchanges, without any conversations, Baekhyun was in awe of him. The way his head bobbed along the rhythm of the music. The way he curled his lips further, showing off his beautiful teeth. The way his fingers easily brushed through the metal strands as he unconsciously catches himself inwardly wondering, “How will they feel if they brush against _my_ skin?”

“Wait? Just what the fuck, Byun Baekhyun?” He whispers, face-palming himself.

 _Being_  
As in love with you as I am  
Being  
As in love with you as I am  
Being  
As in love, love, love

As the song came to a close, Baekhyun slips from his improvised peephole and begins to walk away. He was overcome with the thought of ‘love at first sight’, which he had always known to be maddeningly foolish and indescribably saccharine but then _he_ could be an exception. In fact, _he_ could be a lot of things.

After a minute of blinking lids and mindless ambling, Baekhyun vulnerably smiles, his lips parting, corners curving, showing his two front teeth. However, the question remains. Why is he so stunned at the boy’s presence? Surely he has seen other guys play their guitar but what set _him_ apart? What was it about him that drove Baekhyun to the point of ludicrousness? As his psyche buzzed and whirred on its own, Baekhyun blindingly scrambles toward Kyungsoo’s voice—looking back to check if he wasn’t caught—before he finally disappears into the lobby, heart leaping from his chest, lungs airless from the sight and the rush as Kyungsoo incessantly interrogated him.

In his mind, Baekhyun wishes he had plucked up the courage to talk to the boy and maybe ask him of his name. But as they hop in the cab, he comfortingly thinks, _it’s a small building. I’ll see him again._

 

After the party, Chanyeol satisfyingly leaves with Minseok who drops him over the _M Musical Art_ building, deciding to let off some steam at the building, planning to get lost in its seventy-floored mass of metal and glass. The trip from the party venue to the company building took about fifteen minutes, which meant three minutes of awkward silence, heads turned toward respective windows and fingers pointlessly punching over touch-screen mobile phones; seven minutes of forced conversations, beginning with pursed lips and fidgeting fingers while ending with uneasy laughter; and five minutes of glimpsing into Minseok’s perception as he fluidly talks.

“Remember what I told you, Chanyeol. You hold too much promise, too much potential—it would be a shame if you cease to work for me.”

“Oh, no, sir. I’m not planning to quit. Not now, not ever.” The boy gestures his hand horizontally to emphasize his point, his lips thinning into a purse.

“Yes, because you can’t, even if you wanted to.” He smiles at the boy, slight mischief glinting in his eyes. “The contract said so.”

“I know, sir.” Chanyeol nervously chuckles.

“Your father may just be the biggest hurdle you’re about to face but don’t let him get in your head. You have the say what happens in your life. But instantaneously to that, the responsibility to sail clear toward your goal, your ambition and to never get lost—rests on your shoulders. Remind yourself of the reason why you _want_ to pursue this dream and let that be your true north.”

“I’ll do just that, sir. Thank you.” Their car then comes to a stop right in front the building, _M Musical Art_ shimmering under the starless night sky.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t stay up too late, though.” Hopping off the SUV, Chanyeol straps his guitar’s hard case onto his slender arm, holding out a hand to bid the president goodbye.

As the car revs forward, Chanyeol makes his way toward the building. Inside, he greets the doorman with but a courteous bow and a timid smile, simultaneously handing him a bag of food. Immediately after settling in his studio, he operates the control room, prodding here and there to manipulate and to route the sound for recording. When he was sure everything else was set, he enters the live booth, carrying his guitar and his bundle of sheet music with him.

For a while, he wonders what to play, flipping page after page. He needed something that would distract him, something that wouldn’t remind him of how his father’s fist felt like against his cheek, something that would take his mind off the sight of his mother crying. And then it hit him as he passes by a page entitled * _Angels,_ one of his first compositions that he included in his album. Setting the six-paged sheet music onto the clipboard attached to the microphone stand, he begins to play.

Like tide, memories of the boy quickly overcome him; the boy’s dulcet, euphonious voice that engulfed his being and hazed his cognition; the boy’s mousy brown hair that he sees everywhere, hoping it’s his; the boy’s confidence as he stood before the president, flowing with conviction and determination, sure of his portrayal; the boy’s long, delicate fingers that gestured every now and then as he sang his solo; the boy’s eyes that glinted with fearlessness and flickered with absolute rapture.

He wishes now that he asked Minseok earlier who he was, to at least match a name for the face. The music drones on, his hands easily finding its way through the chords and the arrangement he had written, fingertips on metal lined strings, imagining it to be against the boy’s soft, porcelain skin; a foot on the pedal. Chanyeol could see the boy before him now and as he sings the lyrics, he is all the more reminded of him for he is beautiful beyond description.

 

“Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo tries, pounding on his friend’s door for the nth time. “Baekhyun, please open the door.” He smacks on it again, fist numb from the numerous banging. A comforting hand crawls onto the boy’s shoulder. When Kyungsoo looks up, he is met with tired and dark, ashen eyes and gorgeous bronze skin that belonged to his boyfriend, Kim Jongin, who loomed behind the petite, beady-eyed boy with creased, worried features.

“Leave me alone!” Baekhyun shouts from inside his room in their shared flat. Bitter tears are irrepressibly streaming down his cheeks, staining his porcelain skin, eyes now bloodshot from the intense sobbing.

_An hour ago, they were sitting in a hospital room with ENT Specialist and licensed speech pathologist, Dr. Luhan, explaining Baekhyun’s sudden inability to reach notes and appalling hoarseness in his voice. With a polite smile, the doctor asks Kyungsoo to leave as he conducts tests on Baekhyun. After conducting a series of simple tests, he then tells Baekhyun, “I’ll have to perform an indirect laryngoscopy, Mr. Byun. It’s actually very simple, though it sounds quite complex. Indirect laryngoscopy only means that I will hold a small mirror at the back of your throat, which I will shine a light to so I can see a further view of it.”_

_“Is it really necessary, doc? I mean, it’s probably just stress, right? Or fatigue? Or sore throat?”_

_The doctor smiles. “You don’t have to worry, Mr. Byun. It won’t take long. And if you want, I can use medicine to numb it up.”_

_“Must we?” Baekhyun nervously presses on, hoping to get no for an answer._

_A soft chuckle ripples at the doctor’s voice box, “Yes, I’m afraid we must. Because I don’t think it’s just a sore throat.”_

_Frightened, Baekhyun agrees, his heart drumming against his ribs so hard that they just might break. After only ten minutes, the doctor was sure of what was bothering the boy. And so, the diagnosis was, “ **Vocal nodules**. I’m sorry, Mr. Byun but we’ll have to schedule your surgery as soon as possible. How does, next Wednesday, December 3, 2011, sound?”_

Separately, those two simple words meant nothing to him but putting them together, side by side, it was granted the power to lay waste on Byun Baekhyun’s world as the boy broke down into a pitiful, stifled cry while the doctor elaborated about the treatments and the probable prognoses which the boy could no longer comprehend due to his tragedy.

And now here he was, sitting by his door, knees to his chest, ignoring the hammering as he cried until it became harder and harder to breathe.

 

A wave of crepuscular void and corroding cavity crashes against Chanyeol’s gaunt chest like arctic, relentless waves against him, the soft, hot shore, concaving from the impact. Taking in the unfamiliar view of his pitch-black, vast but vacant house, he takes in a deep breath, thinking if his parents’ flight was worth it because for a while, it was like looking Death in the eyes as hollow and abyssal darkness inundates him.

As he flicks the switch by the door, the house is then flooded with light. Lazily, he plods through the room swamped with mellow, amber light and modern furnishings. The towering colossus then places his black guitar case over the suede, resilient beige couch as he made his way toward the kitchen to fix himself something meager to fill his stomach with as he remembered he barely ate at the party earlier. Fortunately for him as he switched the gas on, he spots a pink note on the fridge saying, _“I cooked tonkatsu if ever you’re still hungry. Anyway, you can microwave them if you’re home too late. We’ll be back in a few days. Love, mom.”_

After reading the note, Chanyeol’s stomach churns but this time, not out of hunger but out of resentment against his father and at the same time guilt, for if he had learned to balance his life and met his father’s ends, they wouldn’t have fought, he wouldn’t be alone, and he wouldn’t feel like a dickhead. The rumbling of his stomach then silences as he ignores the need to eat and instead heads to his room, taking his guitar from the couch before doing so.

The boy then took a brief shower, careful not to think of his parents as he changed into a plain white V-neck shirt and black sweatpants afterwards.

Sleep. It was what the boy looked forward to the most at the end of every day. An escape pod from reality’s alienating aura, a ripple in the midst of stagnant water, a radical wave or two among the monotonic beep of a flat line for dreams provided him the ability to do the extraordinary, to feel the unexpected, and to witness the remarkable.

As the boy snores upstairs however, the gas in the kitchen whirs, sputtering the invisible, highly flammable element while the front door creaks open.

 

* * *

 

As a boy with an unparalleled fondness for animals, Chanyeol had taken a liking to feed the pigeons, which is of course only successful with the help of his mother. Every morning, Park Sumi would come by and every morning after helping the boy to bathe and to dress, they would head down to the hospital garden to feed birds, the woman carrying a brown paper bag full of breadcrumbs, arms linked as they slowly plodded the perfectly floored, white corridors.

Today was no different. It was the same morning struggle to get the boy out of his clothes without harming his freshly wounded stumps, the same morning struggle to get his towering figure into the bathtub, the same morning struggle to brush his teeth for him. But at least this time, he gets to leave his room _and_ feed the birds because if there was one thing that would further dampen the boy’s spirit to the point of depression, it would be being cut off from the world completely or not being able to enjoy and savor what was left of him—well, mostly because of the mysterious boy of whom he was itching to see again.

Arriving the garden, Chanyeol draws a deep breath, smiling at the muted sunlight that nipped the peak of his nose. “What a beautiful day.” His mother said in delight.

“It feels pretty _glacial_ , for me.” He distractedly replies, his voice rumbling with apathy, head gently whipping around, checking for any sign of the boy he had seen the other day.

His mother notices his restlessness, subtly following the boy’s gaze. “You looking for someone?” She asks.

Pivoting his head towards her with wide, almost almond shaped eyes, Chanyeol uneasily laughs which he immediately chokes down with a scowl; shrugging whatever he was accused of off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Is that why you kept bugging me to feed the birds with you? So you can see him again?”

Rolling his eyes at her persistence, Chanyeol hates how the boy has affected him, got him acting like an overemotional clown. “It’s nothing, mother. I’m just admiring the view, which is amazing by the way, compared to the one I have in my room.”

Sumi nods her head, temporarily resting her case. “Is he handsome?” She suddenly begins again while her son groans in both hilarity and vexation while she laughs. Three years ago, when she walked in on Chanyeol and his boyfriend in his room, she admitted that it devastated her to think that her own son preferred men. But after thinking it through, who was she to tell her son how to live his life? As time was given and explanations were considered, she eventually understood, determined to keep it from his father for the time being. “Oh, Yeol. I was only teasing! And just so you know, you’re adorable when you blush.”

“Mom!” Chanyeol exclaims, chagrin reverberating in his throat, his vowel asserted a second too long.

 

Back in the hospital, Baekhyun angrily fidgets in his seat with his whiteboard and marker, looking around the pristine and sterilized room while he waits for his doctor to return from the back room. He hated it. He hated waiting. He hated hopelessly waiting. And he hated the silence. For silence provoked thoughts. Thoughts that frightened him. Thoughts that haunted his psyche. Thoughts he was vulnerable to. He would distract himself by singing but then, _“I’m not allowed”_ he irately wrote on the portable whiteboard, violent black strokes tainting the vacuous, glossy white surface.

When the doctor finally returns, he does so with a brown folder neatly clasped in his fist and a very troubled expression on his features, alarming the boy further as he anxiously erases what he wrote with the sleeve of his hospital gown that was a shade of sickening, pale blue. “I’m sorry Baekhyun but I don’t want to waste any more time easing you into this.”

In an attempt to seem calm, he coolly jots down: _“I can take it, doc.”_ Simultaneously holding out two thumbs, his lips in a curl.

Sitting down, the doctor places the folder on the desk and crosses his legs, intertwining his fingers and setting his hands on his knees. “We made a mistake.”

This stops the boy, his smile fading into a frown, hands numb as it drops in temperature, lips mercilessly robbed of its color. _“Wait—a mistake?”_

The doctor’s face twists contritely, remorse swelling in his eyes, brows etched with rue, “I apologize in advance, Mr. Byun—because upon removing the nodes, we unfortunately detached very important tissues as well—meaning, you are never to talk again. You are—regretfully speaking—incapacitated to produce _any_ sound.”

 

They see each other again under the sickening fluorescent lights and within twists of dour white aisles; this time, Baekhyun was rid of his whiteboard while Chanyeol’s hands were wrapped in thinner gauze. Chanyeol had just come back from the garden, his mother’s arms linked with his while Baekhyun met the other boy’s eyes but bolted past them, orbs glistening with tears, face warped with affliction. Time slowed as this momentum took place, the towering colossus faced between the decision to ignore him for fear of his mother’s meddlesome demeanor or to run after him to satisfy his curiosity and intrigue.

Seconds after the said instance, Chanyeol froze, drawn by the boy with tear-stained cheeks as the need to follow him abraded his innards. Does he? Or does he not?

“Chanyeol?” His mother distractingly asks, slightly tugging his arm. In complete unawares however, Chanyeol breaks into a run, quickly slipping past his mother’s tightening clasp. Without a word and without a glance back, he flies, disregarding his mother’s calls.

Propitiously, he catches a sight of Baekhyun before he could disappear into a bend. After what seemed to be like chasing a fleeting ghost that keeps vanishing whenever he thought he was close enough, Baekhyun finally stops, tucking himself beside a vending machine near a corner, all trembling silhouettes and quaking penumbra as Chanyeol irresolutely approached.

With his face to his hands, Baekhyun recedes into the void, not a care in the world that he feels has betrayed him, his sobs filling the constricted space he hid himself in. He was fully oblivious of the looming shadow that cast over his already-shrouded figure until of course large, warm arms took him and tender, bright eyes met his.

 

 _“Sorry. Apparently, I’m helpless without this thing.”_ Baekhyun wrote, trying to get used to the irksome, squeaking sound the marker made whenever it met with the glazed whiteboard. He is in the cafeteria now, wordlessly sitting across this boy he knows he has seen before. Fortunately, Dr. Luhan found them earlier, with the intention of returning his board, “Remember, we will take full responsibility of everything, Mr. Byun. You have nothing to worry about.” The good doctor says with a sad smile, nodding at Chanyeol as an acknowledgment before leaving.

“I-I don’t mind.” Chanyeol stutters. What is he doing here anyway? Thinking about it now, Chanyeol realizes he isn’t exactly an expert in communication. In fact, it is where he lacked the knowledge in executing, which is exactly why he strongly believes that music is one of the best ways to channel emotions and convey unspoken thoughts. So why? Why is he here? Why is he sitting down in a noisy cafeteria that is filled with broken people leading a half-life, hopelessly attempting to engage in small talk with this boy whom he barely knows and to whom he’s probably physically attracted?

Biting his bottom lip at the sudden wave of tension that overwhelms them, Baekyun contemplates on what to say next when he realizes, he hasn’t caught the boy’s name yet. _“I’m Baekhyun, by the way. Byun Baekhyun. You are?”_

“Oh right, I apologize. I’ve been rude—running after you like that without any proper introduction—tha-that was rude.” He deftly clears his throat, shaking off his shallow trepidation, managing a Cheshire cat grin. “Park Chanyeol.”

 _He smiles like an idiot,_ Baekhyun thought as he returns this with a frail smile, automatically holding out his hand to shake Chanyeol’s. _“Nice to meet you.”_

Pursing his lips, he looks at Baekhyun’s slender, intricate fingers that dangled midair then back at his eyes. “I’d shake your hand, but…” He holds out both of his, his mouth receding into a line. “Mine are indisposed.”

The small male winces at this, certain he fucked up big time. _“Shit, I’m sorry. I was crying like a bitch earlier, I didn’t even notice.”_

“It’s okay.”

Silence again as the boys respectively pondered, distracting themselves by swishing heads and tapping feet. Then Baekhyun speaks through the whiteboard, his voice embodied by the piping noise the marker made. _“You’re that boy in the garden the other day, aren’t you? Your mom told you off before you could sit by the fountain.”_

Chanyeol smiles gratefully smiles, sheepishly nodding his head. “You remember.”

_“Yeah. It was a good thing she came by the way. ‘Cause if she didn’t, you probably would’ve caught a cold or something.”_

“I know, pretty dick move.”   

_“But I think I’ve seen you even before that.”_

“Are you—by any chance—working for _M Musical Art_? Becau—” Before the colossus could finish, Baekhyun tore his gaze from the boy as he proceeds to writing his reply. Chanyeol could feel the excitement permeate from him, contagious, a potential epidemic.

_“Yeah! Wait, how did you—?”_

“I work there. You’re that rookie kid, aren’t you? The one playing that huge role in this season’s _Rent_?”

_“You know about that?”_

“I actually do, yeah. I think I saw you perform once. I’m not familiar with the title since I’m not that into musicals, but I do remember the song. I think it went something like,”

_One blaze of glory, glory_

Chanyeol attempts, practically mumbling the lyrics but partly getting the melody right.

 _“One Song Glory,”_ Baekhyun despondently replies, though his smile did not waver, his eyes are downcast, causing Chanyeol to presume it was a sensitive topic. He obviously wasn’t ready to talk about it yet—especially not to someone he just met. _“Anyway, I have to go. It was nice meeting you, Chanyeol.”_

“Pleasure is mine, Baekhyun.”

 _“Thanks for…”_ His hand dangles in a stop, the sentence on the board awkward and unfinished as he looked for words. _“For looking up when I reached out.”_

“I have a knack for that.”

_“Great.”_

“Okay, bye.”

Walking away, Baekhyun knew he couldn’t just do so. Why should he? This stranger—who was utterly dead attractive, messily awkward in his towering, lanky frame, with a voice so exquisitely deep that it reminds him of the ocean, blue and bottomless—went through the trouble of stretching his mutilated hands for the boy’s aid and now he walks away? Was he going to squander the chance to begin anew? Or was he going to seize it?  

As his mind and body commenced their daily dispute, the boy shuts his eyes and turns right back, tapping Chanyeol on his shoulder. _“Can I see you again? Tomorrow, maybe?”_ He writes apace.

Reading the board, Chanyeol helplessly chuckles, “That depends. Do you like birds?” Later that night, as Chanyeol neared sleep, he realizes it was the first time he ever laughed in the span of his crazed adolescence.

 

* * *

 

“Good morning.” Chanyeol approaches, a lime green eco bag slung over his forearm, ice crushing underneath him. It has only been three days since the two have formally met—exchanging names and eventually room numbers—but they have already set a sort of routine. Chanyeol ultimately convinced his mother that he has met a friend and that he would like to feed the birds with him from now on. It took the woman a while to agree though, their arguments regarding it usually ending with her playfully teasing the boy.

As Chanyeol sets the bag beside Baekhyun, the petite, mousy brown-haired boy digs in, searching for the bag of crumbs. _“Good morning.”_ He writes after he procures said bag, forcing out a smile.

“Oh, wow. You seem happier than usual.” Chanyeol replies sarcastically, his eyes widening at the sight. “It’s not everyday you greet me with a smile.”

_“Don’t get used to it.”_

“I won’t.” He sits down with a grunt, gazing at the beautiful, winter morning sky that gleamed with daubs of shimmering silver. Silence as Chanyeol’s eyes turn to Baekhyun who was now showering breadcrumbs toward an empty threshold, birds instantaneously flocking for their morning feast. “So what’s up?”

_“Oh y’know, the ushe. Moping around, brooding over my uselessness.”_

“You have to stop thinking like that, Baek.”

_“Maybe someday, Yeol.”_

“Stubborn shrimp.”

_“Walking stick.”_

A laugh resonates through his throat, voice like soft ripples forming upon the navy surface of an unfathomable ocean. “That hurt, wisenheimer.”

_“It was a low blow but it’s the truth. And I speak the truth.”_

“But seriously, Baekhyun. Stop beating yourself up.”

 _“No—there is nothing out there for me, Chanyeol. My very purpose is expunged, as we know it. I may as well die now.”_ He swiftly writes, flicking his wrist afterwards with a frustrated scowl, which Chanyeol interprets as the boy’s irritability towards cramps.

“Wow, very expound, Baek. I didn’t know you knew the word expunged. Anyway, if it’s any consolation, those were my exact sentiments the day I lost my hands but—” _I saw you again,_ was what Chanyeol wanted to say but instead, “I realized that perhaps I was made for something much more profound than what I had in mind.” It wasn’t the time yet. He knew it wasn’t the time to tell him. Besides, he wasn’t even sure if Baekhyun was interested in dating _boys._

_“Like what?”_

“I’ve yet to find out.”

Silence. “What’s your story anyway—I don’t want to pry, is what I mean. I just wanted to know, if you don’t mind.”

 _“I don’t. Just bear with me though, I’m not much of a storyteller.”_ Baekhyun mimes a soundless sigh, running his long, fragile fingers against his face. _“Well anyway, I don’t know. One minute I was singing, next thing I knew my throat was hoarse as fuck and I just couldn’t get the notes right anymore.”_ Erasing the previous sentences to make room for more, Chanyeol could see tears forming at the corner of his eyes. _“According to my doctor—the one who returned this the day we met—I’ve had them for quite a long time. The nodes didn’t make themselves known until rehearsals, when I began pushing myself beyond my limit.”_

“That must have been devastating.”

_“You have no idea.”_

“Well actually, I do.”

This stops Baekhyun from writing a reply, shooting Chanyeol a look of question, his features deformed, his psyche as quiet as a tomb, awaiting the colossus’ furtherance.

“I used to play,” He places his elbows onto his knees, allowing the boy to process it all up. “Specifically, the guitar. Then one day I fought with my father. Eventually, the fight turned into a sort of brawl and before it could progress, my mother decided they should leave for a while, to cool things down. That night however, my dad drops by and he—well, _I_ —made a mistake.”

Baekhyun is all the more intrigued as he hears further, curiosity getting the best of him as he carefully egged the other boy on. _“Which was?”_

“I-I left the gas valve on.”

_“So?”_

“He smokes when he’s nervous.”

_“So he lights a cigarette because apologizing to his son intimidated him, then KA-POW?”_

Chanyeol briefly nods, “I guess you can say that. Anyway, I woke up to a low explosion, sending my room in a quake. So I made my way out, grabbing my slightly burnt guitar when I hear this muted grunting, drowned by the crackling, blazing pandemonium the fire produced. It was coming from the kitchen. And there, under flaming debris, covered in soot, sweat, and blood, was my father. I tried to help, lifting the beam enough to pry him out but he stops me. ‘My legs, they’re broken, Chanyeol. I can’t feel them anymore. Even if you got me out, I will slow you down and ruin both our chances of survival.’ Of course, I couldn’t do just that. I couldn’t leave him there. So I pursued, determined to get him out. He kept shouting at me, telling me I was a fool. A stubborn fool.

‘Listen to me, Chanyeol.’ My father yells again, ‘I’m going to die here—that I’ve accepted—but please spare yourself. Take care of your mother.’ As he bore his orbs into mine, I was reminded of the proverb, ‘the eyes are the window to the soul’ and realized it to be true for I could see torment and anguish as he spoke through gritted teeth, bloodstained hands reaching for my face. ‘I love you, so-’ Before he could finish his sentence, the fire has spread above us as the rest of the ceiling collapsed, burying my father all the more. I was too weak—a beat too _late_ —I’ve never been offbeat before. It was a very strange feeling.

I was deadpan, gazing upon my father while crocodile tears seeped through the corners of my eyes. Simultaneous to that—like a matchstick stroke against a wall—my hands were caught on fire, set ablaze as sweltering pain overcame me, my fingertips receding into raw meat, palms rid of its fleshy shell. All I could see then was flaming red. Bloody red. There was too much red in just one place. It drove me… mad.

But I persisted. All I could think about was my dad and the fact that I couldn’t let him go, I couldn’t leave him to die in a rapacious pyre. It wasn’t the kind of death I wanted for him. It wasn’t the death he deserved. Gradually, I began to lose oxygen until I could barely move, let alone talk. I went numb as my vision darkened, a blanket of abyss engulfing me. Before I plunged into a pained slumber, I heard sirens.

The next day, I woke up in the hospital, hurting almost everywhere. And when I saw that my hands were gone, replaced by these—these useless stumps, I realized I perpetually condemned myself to a life of a cripple. You can imagine my resentment, my rancor. Not only did I lose a parent, but also, the ability to do what I love the most.

My mother was dazed about my father’s death and my desecration. That night, she came up to me saying there was more to it than just my father visiting to apologize. Apparently, he came over to tell me that I made him proud, no matter the decisions I made. And that he was sorry it took him a while to come around. But he did and he wanted to set things right. Then, just as I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my mother places a new acoustic guitar on my lap. ‘The police found it in your father’s car. He wanted to surprise you.’

I-I’ve never regretted something in my life. Until then.” Baekhyun thought the boy was about to cry as he tears gathering at the corner of his eyes, threatening to fall but instead, the colossus sniffles it up, clearing his throat and managing a smile at the smaller male.

_“So, in the end, we created our own set of misfortunes. What a pair we are—such poor unfortunate souls.”_

Chanyeol scoffs. “Is that how you see your life now? Because I don’t,” As he says this, he stares at Baekhyun’s lips then at his eyes. The smaller male catches this, blood immediately rushing toward his cheeks, ears heating up. “I definitely don’t.”

 

As Baekhyun lay there in his hospital bed—waiting for sleep to brush him off his feet—his mind is automatically assaulted by thoughts of Park Chanyeol, plaguing his psyche with his beautiful eyes, always so invigorating, so buoyant; his chapped lips, perpetually pink and constantly rough, his gorgeous smile that is indubitably knee-wobble worthy; his towering figure that makes their height difference seem so adorable; and his baritone—it’s always his baritone. His baritone that sounds so deep and poignant—it felt like home—reminding him of the strong gust of wind, the blue ocean, and beyond.

It was odd though, considering Baekhyun was probably one of the few people one would easily detest for he often carried himself in such a way that made him look quite intimidating. And who wouldn’t be anyway—he’s a prodigy, a virtuoso. But Chanyeol—Chanyeol’s different.

Baekhyun then remembers the way Chanyeol’s words escaped his lips earlier, voice resonating through the crevices of his mouth, his soft eyes on him as he indirectly implied Baekhyun made him happy enough that his misfortune failed to meet its purpose.

Sitting up, Baekhyun ponders, his face gnarled with dispute. Why was he allowing a boy to raid his thoughts in the middle of the night when he should be sulking over his impotence? Or better yet, asleep? Exactly how can a boy he’d only just met beset him like a lovesick teenage girl? _This isn’t a fucking fairytale out of hardbound, golden storybook._

Can this mean— _I like him?_ Baekhyun thinks, fists rammed up his temples. _No, Baekhyun. Get a hold of yourself! You do **not** like him. You are lonely and vulnerable and possibly depressed. You need a friend and the heavens granted you that through the form of Park Chanyeol. Because seriously, how can love be found in a place so desolate?_

 _God, this is stupid!_ He whines at himself as he falls back on his bed, his subconscious shrugging with a raised brow as he tries to sleep, covering himself with his sheets, eyes shut so tight his lids feel like ripping apart, fingers clenched so firm his fingernails left—what seemed to be—Cs etched on his palms.

 

Chanyeol smothered himself with the pillow as he continued to lie on his stomach, a futile attempt on suicide. _How could I be so stupid?_ He asked himself, setting the memories of this morning in playback. He had obviously made his feelings known to the other male. Surely, Baekhyun noticed because after feeding the birds, the boy excused himself by writing, _“I have to shave my toes.”_ He hasn’t seen him again after that and it’s probably because he didn’t want to be seen. Besides, Chanyeol was positive that shaving one’s toe was impossible.

With a pessimistic sigh, Chanyeol turns to lie on his side, facing the window. He could see it was snowing again, Mother Nature blanketing Seoul in yet another thick layer of fine ice. As he thinks, he wonders what was it about Baekhyun that he liked. Why was he so attracted to him? When he first saw the boy, he was unexpectedly magnetized by his voice but now it was totally different. It seems it wasn’t just the voice that he was drawn to.

In a span of only three days, they had been—what most would consider—‘friends’. They never ran out of insults and smart aleck replies, every day a never-ending competition for bigger and better words; they would cackle—yes, cackle not laugh—in unison at the stupidest things, whether it was a poorly put pun or a failed metaphor; they are both unbelievably fond and passionate for music, discussions about unheard bands and underrated musicals goes on, even after supper; and they both have an unquenchable thirst for adventure, sneaking out the hospital and onto the rooftop to get the best view of Seoul even if the temperature immensely dropped. It was insane.

What surprised Chanyeol most was how effortless he eased into Baekhyun’s company, for being the sort of introvert he had always been; making friends was an unfaltering day-to-day battle. But apparently, Baekhyun was an exception seeing as he droned on for a good twenty minutes about his demise earlier. Somehow, he found talking to Baekhyun rather natural and it was the sort of relationship that existed without pretention. Just as the giant was close to shutting his eyes that are now heavy with sleep, he thinks, _“That voiceless, diminutive shrimp is going to be my sweetest undoing, I can tell.”_

 

In the middle of the night, Chanyeol is awakened by the creaking of his door. Groggily, he pops an eye open, squinting through the dark as he props himself up by his elbow, hair literally all over the place as though it might as well defy gravity. When he sees and hears nothing, he assumes that it’s probably a dream, setting back down his bed as he pulls his sheets up with his stumps.

Before he could plunge back into sleep however, a rustling is heard beside him as his covers pulled and a slender, knobby knee hits the back of his calves. Leaping to face the other side with a surprised, alarmed grunt, he sees Baekhyun with his usual glare, willfully avoiding Chanyeol’s gaze. The colossus makes room, scooting enough for the smaller male to fit in.

Wordless (Chanyeol assumes Baekhyun deliberately left his board back in his room to be spared from explaining), Baekhyun buries his face on Chanyeol’s chest, shutting his eyes, his features still frigid, not rid of his scowl. With this, the giant knew that somehow—despite his thick, abnormally large (figurative, of course) head—the smaller male feels the same way about him. As they slept, their lips curl in sync, forming beautiful, serene smiles illuminated by moonbeam that shone generously upon their warm, nestled bodies.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think of this chapter! If you noticed btw, Junmyeon and Jongdae's characters in the musical, Rent are partners. Like literally partners. Junmyeon plays Tom Collins while Jongdae plays Angel Dumott Schunard. To put it bluntly, they're gay in Rent, heh.
> 
> (*) - Sehun's line is a part of Mimi Marquez's (Taeyeon's role in Rent) song, Out Tonight. Which explains why Jongdae sings the continuation: Well, it's gotta be close to midnight.  
> (*) - Angels by The xx


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